Testimonial

Prison or rehab I grew up in a poor household with my four other siblings, my father and my mother. My childhood was full of child abuse and hatred for each other. At the age of four, I was spending my days on the doorsteps of the pokies. There was never any food in the…

Fitter and stronger in Christ I am completing the Teen Challenge SA program for the second time here at Strathalbyn in 2022. The first time was in 2007 in Elizabeth, 15 years ago. When I completed the program for the first time, it was wonderful. I learnt much about myself and life, but it was…

Kingsley is the father of Oscar, one of the participants of our Living Free program. Together, they recently celebrated Oscar’s baptism, which Kingsley says was a dramatic change from the ‘toughest, roughest days of hell [they] endured over the previous decade’. I had the privilege of raising Oscar as a single father. Our family loved…

FROM DEATH TO LIFE I don’t have much in the way of people, concepts or situations to blame for why I was the way I was. I grew up with a loving family who left me wanting for nothing. I had a couple of brothers who only wanted the best for me, grandparents who would…

A time to let go I always knew there was something better than what I had going for me. I just didn’t really understand how to step towards that better side of life. For me, the number of times I went around that mountain without actually taking a step upwards in the right direction is…

God had other plans My journey to Christ is a little different from many others. I first discovered that God was real when I found myself angry with him. I grew up in a standard family – a mum, a dad and an older brother. There was a Christian foundation in our family values. We…

‘My relationship with my children is being restored.’ I am a 46-year-old gentleman with dreams, hopes, health and a purpose in life. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. Not so long ago, I was a deadbeat dad. I was unemployable, and I was a raging alcoholic. It took me 30 years to get that…

Stepping up I was born a river boy to the Ngarrindjeri Nation in the late 1970s. My mother is of the Hunter Clan, and my father is of the Kropinyeri Clan. Growing up, I was introduced to various substances, both ingestible and visual. These proved very detrimental to the shaping of a 12-year-old boy. I…

My journey of addiction didn’t begin in the way many people perceive someone with an addiction starts. I grew up in a loving family with support, with my grandfather filling the father role in my life. So for all intents and purposes, it was a normal childhood.